


Bexley Belinda and the Polaroid Pictures

by rather_live_in_their_world_writer



Series: Polaroid Pictures [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bexley Belinda's Cafe, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, I wrote this while listening to Adele, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Stark Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5418404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rather_live_in_their_world_writer/pseuds/rather_live_in_their_world_writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bexley Lewis knew she would never get over him. Not with the reminder of their love snarking and sassing just like him, not with his smile staring up at her everyday, not with his words wrapped around her thigh, she knew he  would forever hold her heart in his calloused hands. She had never thought she would have the same hold on his heart, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“We’re soulmates, does that not mean anything to you?” he yelled, his long arms flailing. Her bloodshot eyes stared into his, tears streaking down her pale skin, her blues eyes glared into the chocolate brown ones that captivated her from the beginning, before they even spoke their soul words to each other. This would forever be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it had to happen. She wants to scream at him, to tell him she’s pregnant, that she refuses to raise her baby with this man her first and only love had become, that she just needed him to support her like he used to, to show her he loved her, to act like he loved her.

“I’m leaving,” she said once again, her voice firm. Her eyes were hard and unwavering, like a brick wall, keeping them apart. He still looks surprised, like he hadn’t noticed the way her eyes had slowly hardened and her stuff had left his home.

“Why?” he chokes out, pretending to cough instead of releasing the sobs she knows are in his chest, like they are in hers. This was one of the problems, him pushing off emotions, becoming the vessel the media wants him to be, becoming the man Obadiah wants him to be.

“There are a lot of reasons, Anthony,” she sighs, ignoring the way he winces when she uses is full name. Bexley hastily wipes the tear tracks on her flushed cheeks and sniffs a bit, but her face is calm and collected, and Tony knows her resolve is solid like the wall in her eyes. “You’re just not the bo-”

“What?” he interrupted, glaring down at her. “I’m not the boy you fell in love with? Wow, that really sucks, Bex, but isn’t love about loving them no matter wh-”

“I’ll always love you, Tony,” she yells, then looks down to the small petite hands that fit so perfectly in his ruff, calloused ones. “I think that’s what hurts the most, I’ll always love you, but we can’t be together…” He’s silent for once and she searches for the words that need to be said. “We-” she stops, looking into his unbelieving eyes. Weren’t soulmates supposed to have a fairytale ending? Didn’t saying each other’s words guarantee happiness? “I-” she stops again, not saying the words she wants to say, she needs to say. ‘I’m pregnant,’ are the words on her plump lips, but she swallows them down. “I’ll always love you, I’ll never stop, I’ll never get over your smile, or stop seeing your eyes when I close mine, but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep getting hurt by you, I won’t survive.” She wants to scream, because this doesn’t feel like surviving, this feels like drowning, this feels like being burned alive, like being ripped apart from the inside out. Her voice is tight and quiet, like strings strung tight, close to snapping. “We’re only kids, Tony, and they’ll be other girls for you, you’ll get through this. You don’t need me, you never have, and I think I’ll just hold y-” a sob escapes her chapped lips as she looks down to her hands once again. Her voice is so quiet, just below a whisper, and he barely hears it. “I’ll just hold you back.”

And then she turns, and runs. Running away from the man she’s loved since she was fifteen, running away from the man she knows will never leave her battered heart, with the only evidence of their love in her womb.

Tony doesn’t know why he doesn’t run after her right away, but when he steps forward, about to chase the love of his life, the only girl he’s ever loved, and he never got to tell her, the woman meant for him, a heavy hand lands on his shoulder, saying the words that ring through his head like the wedding bells of the future he envisioned since the day he met her.

“She was holding you back, Tony, it’s good she’s gone,” He wants to be sick.


	2. Curiosity Broke Her Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we get a flash to the future, and I'm not sure if I want to just keep going to the future, or give you the whole story from the beginning, so tell me what you think!

Darcy was thirteen when she found it. Darcy had not been snooping. She had merely stumbled upon a small cardboard box in the back of her mom’s closet under a pile of junk and clothes labeled, ‘The Letter I’ll Never Send,’ in her mother’s loopy handwriting. The girl leant down and took in a breath. Blueberry. Nice. Her mom never failed to write with markers that smelled like fruits. It happened to be one of Darcy’s favorite things about her. The other being her ridiculously awesome hair. She dyed it unnatural colors all the time. Currently it was a dark blue, like the night sky. Her mom was epic. 

And apparently she hid stuff in the back of her closet. 

Weird.

Usually her mom shared everything with her. Who flirted with her that day, the family recipes, even her favorite books! They were as close as a mother and daughter could be, yet here was a whole box of things she didn’t know about. Unbelievable. 

Darcy carefully opened the box, her nerves making her hands shake a bit. What would she find? Who was supposed to get the letter? What if they were to a celebrity? And she had accidently stumbled into her mom’s obsession with Justin Timberlake? What if she was secretly soulmates with him? How could she handle her stepdad being her crush? She couldn’t, that’s how.

Before she could spiral anymore into panic, the lid slipped off and the box full of a single letter and a bunch of polaroid pictures fell onto her lap. Who was Tony? And why was her mother writing a letter to some mobster from the forties? Her dainty hands picked it up, ‘Tony,’ written in the middle. It wasn’t sealed, so, there wouldn’t be any evidence, right? Right. 

 

Dear Tony, 

 

I wonder if you’d recognize my handwriting, or if you’d have to scan to the bottom, then have the sudden realization, your hand going to the outside of your thigh. I wonder if you even remember me, my smile, my eyes. Probably not too clearly anymore. I remember yours like it was yesterday I last looked into them, without even having to look at our old polaroids. 

I try not to look at them. It hurts to see us so happy, so in love, because I remember how it fell apart so perfectly, so according to his plan. He twisted our love, our innocent, beautiful love into a monster that haunts me in my dreams. He used your pain, and molded you into the perfect playboy that drowned his emotions in alcohol. 

It hurts seeing you on the TV, dating a supermodel, partying like you’re still twenty. I was right, saying you’d get over me, but I really wish I wasn’t. I wish you had run after me, grabbed my hand that fit so perfectly in yours, and finally told me you love me. But I guess I’m still dreaming of the impossible, I’m still naive like you said. 

Do you ever regret those words? Those words that are carved into my skull, that are burned into my brain. I can still see that fight, where we both said things that hurt the other like a knife to the chest. I wonder if you regret those words like I do. Probably not, because you never said sorry. 

I need to say something, something I didn’t tell you because I was scared. Something I trusted with Obadiah because I thought I could trust him. I was pregnant with your child. This really threw a wrench into a tornado. We were already falling apart, and then I find out I’m pregnant. You were already stealing glances at other girls when you thought I wasn’t looking, already pushing me away. What was I supposed to do? Stane threatened our little girl’s life, and everything was already falling apart. But I remember the sentence that made me go. The one that solidified my resolve. “You’re holding him back, Bexley.” 

I was holding you back, Tony. 

 

Bexley B. Lewis

 

Darcy stared down at the letter with tears burning her eyes. Her mom’s soulmate, the one meant for her, was an ass. She let out a gust of air and envisioned her mom downstairs, working hard at her small but popular café, when she wasn’t waiting for her soulmate, when she didn’t have that hope to hold onto. Darcy sniffed and put the letter back into its envelope, then stared down at the pictures she had ignored. 

She picked up one with a boy with messy brown hair covered his face and a girl with soft pink curls covered her eyes, her wide smile familiar. On the white part at the bottom said in her mother’s loopy handwriting, ‘The most handsome boy in the world and' the next part was crossed out, 'a sack of potatoes.’ Then in a boy’s scratchy handwriting, it continued, ‘the most beautiful girl in the world.’ She was going to look at more when her she heard her mother’s voice from downstairs. 

“Darcy-Dee! Can you come help me down here!” Darcy wiped her tears away and cleared her throat. 

“Yeah! Be down in a minute!” She hurriedly placed the box away with all its contents and layered on the stuff she had to dig through to find it. She took in a shaky breath, her respect for her mother doubling and tripling the longer she thinks of everything she went through. Her mom was hella strong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we get a flash to the future, and I'm not sure if I want to just keep going to the future, or give you the whole story from the beginning, so tell me what you think!


	3. Full Circle

Bexley Belinda Lewis had always had a hard life, but looked forward to her soulmate, who she knew was coming to pick up some of her burdens, even if his first words weren’t exactly romantic. Her parents had been wonderful examples of true destined love, but her Mama and Pops had died in a car accident when she was just a toddler, and she was sent to her Grandma’s. Grandma Lewis smoked like a chimney and cursed like a sailor, and honestly didn’t give two shits about what happened to a young and depressed Bex Lewis. 

She spent her early years yearning for a purpose, for a reason. Thinking like a philosopher before she even hit her teens. She started working at a local café once she turned sixteen, using the money on hair dye and clothes. She had thick eyeliner and black lipstick, platform shoes and fishnet tights, but her whole world shifted when a boy with messy brown locks and intelligent brown eyes waltzed into the small crappy café. 

“Got any coffee that’s not shit?” he asked the goth girl behind the counter after he took a sip out of his cup, the older man behind him giving her an apologetic look. 

“Nope, guess you’ll just have to get used to my shit coffee, bub,” rolling her wide blue eyes and snapping her pink bubblegum. He raised an eyebrow and laughed. Bex swore it was the best laugh she had ever heard. She had cracked a smirk with her plump black lips and told him she had kinda guessed her soulmate was an asshole, she had never guessed he would be a famous asshole. 

“Mom!” a seventeen-year-old Darcy grinned up at her mother, both dressed up for Darcy’s graduation. 

“Darcy-Dee!” Bex yelled, pulling her daughter into her embrace, “You look so beautiful! Let me get a picture!” she yelled, taking out her battered polaroid camera. “Say, ‘cheese!’” Darcy smiled her beautiful familiar smile and with a small flash, the camera printed. Bex wiped away her tears as she tucked a chin length lavender curl behind her ear. “I am so proud! Now come on! I don’t want you to be late!” 

“Mom! Calm down!” her daughter giggled, and Bex was assaulted with the memory of bringing a young baby Darcy to her kindergarten graduation. Her rosy cheeks, big blue eyes, and long brown curls made her look like an angel. “It’s not that big of a deal!” 

“’Not that big a deal’!?” the thirty-seven-year-old exclaimed loudly, drawing attention from the customers in the café, who were far used to Bex’s loud voice, and just smiled at the pair. “You’re graduating! My baby girl in becoming an adult! I’ve got to stay excited or I’ll panic!” Darcy snorted and put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, not having any trouble, as they were both short and curvy.

“Calm down so we can go!” 

“Fine! Fine!” 

Bex couldn’t believe her little girl was off at college. She felt tears burn her eyes as she stared at her shaking hands, sitting in the corner of her closet, an unopened box in her lap. She was truly all alone. Sure there was Monique, a twenty-year-old girl with long dreads who worked at the café and dyed Bex’s hair, sure there were the regular’s, like Karen and Rob, but she was all alone right then, no family or soulmate around. 

She didn’t dare look up the latest news on playboy turned superhero Tony Stark, ‘cause she knew that would lead down a path of tears and staring at the words wrapped around her thigh, the one that connected them by their souls. They had fit so perfectly together, before- before-

Bex took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, banging her head back against her closet wall. She needed to express these emotions. She needed to get this horrible feeling out of her bones. She needed to paint. 

Hours later found Bex staring at the large canvas on the floor of her living room, paint smeared on her cheeks and forehead. It was beautiful. 

A woman, a black cloak covering most of her body, stood in a field of color, while a child with dark hair, wide blue eyes who wore a dark red princess dress and a shiny gold crown ran through the field of flowers. Splashes and dots of pink and purples, highlighted with yellow, under an ocean of blue, with white, wispy cotton clouds drifting across the expanse of sky. The woman in the cloak watched her daughter with a slight smile on her black lips, her dark blue eyes the color of the night sky. Cotton candy pink curls peaked out from under the hood, and it was the same color in the polaroid next to the canvas.

The same woman, wearing a long sleeveless black maxi dress, held a little girl in a red sundress in her pale arms, as they lay in a field of flowers, both smiling at each other. It was one of her favorite memories, when everything was so simple. Her and Darcy in their own little kingdom. Then she grew up, and suddenly didn’t need her mom as much, suddenly she had boyfriends and went to parties, and was searching for her soulmate. It all happened so fast. 

One day, she was a nineteen-year-old girl in a hospital room, holding a little girl in her arms, wondering what the hell she was going to do, then the next, she was wiping tears from under her eyes at her daughter’s graduation. And now she was alone, with her polaroid pictures. She had seemed to come full circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought it was time you learned how Tony and bex met, love at first sight as they say... I love the feedback I'm getting!


	4. Holding You Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Angst is ahead!

Bexley remembers clearly the lowest moment in her life. Believe it or not, it was while she was with her soulmate. This would be unbelievable to most living in Bex’s world, as everyone was blinded with movie love, and I guess them not having a powerful and evil person separating them helped. 

Bex never blamed Tony, she blamed Obadiah a lot, but she blamed herself most of all. She was the one who didn’t fight Obadiah, she’s the one who allowed Tony to push her away, she’s the one who broke under the pressure, who kept quiet when his eyes wandered, she’s the one that gave up trying. 

‘But it was our baby at stake,’ she has to remind herself. It was their child; the only proof they were actually together; Darcy had been the one at stake. There was nothing she could’ve done, she couldn’t’ve fought Stane, she couldn’t’ve glue Tony’s eyes to her when she was just some girl with unnaturally colored hair. 

She was just some naive girl thinking she could tie down Tony Stark. She was just that scared little girl hiding in her closet because her Grandma’s dog scared her. She’s just a girl who dreamed too big and fell apart when her plans fell through. 

She was just the owner of a small café in Brooklyn. Who painted the feelings she locked away for decades, who cries when her daughter doesn’t call, who is still so desperately in love with someone way out of her league, she can’t even look at the pictures in that wretched box she buried for a reason. If she even thinks about the times when she was happy, it brings waves of depression and anxiety. 

What is she supposed to do?! She doesn’t know if she could ever get over the man meant for her, she doesn’t know if he still keeps that picture of her in his wallet, she doesn’t know what her daughter did today, she doesn’t know if he still thinks about her, she doesn’t know how she’ll survive, all alone. 

Bexley sobs into her hands, sitting in the back of her closet once again, listening to the sounds of the city. She listens for his heartbeat. She remembers nights when her grandmother was too drunk and she climbed into his bedroom through his window (that he always kept unlocked, just for her) and lied with him in his ridiculously comfortable bed, her head laying on his chest, a small smile on her lips as she tries to forget the bruise blossoming on the side of her face. She remembers his soft lips on her forehead, his calloused fingers combing through her curls. She’d sigh in contentment and he’d chuckle, the sound humming in her ear. 

“I’ll never get sick of lying here with you, Tony,” she’d whisper to him, both of them praying Jarvis wouldn’t hear them. That was a mistake only made once, good thing he had only smiled and placed a finger to his lips, shutting the door after him. 

“Neither will I,” he’d whisper back, the dark cloaking them like they were in their own little world. “Why do you go back?” he’d ask, his voice tight but soft at the same time. 

“I have to,” she’d whisper. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she’d sigh then and say, before he could interrupt, “No, Tony, I can’t come here, she’s my legal guardian and she would never let me anyway. She’d flip if she found out I was moving out early, she needs a slave to do her house work for her. And feed that hell hound she calls a dog…” 

“I don’t want you to leave,” he’d groan the next morning, when the sun was peaking over the horizon. “I don’t want you to ever go,” he’d sigh, kissing her forehead lovingly. Sometimes when she concentrates, she can still feel his lips on her forehead, his scruff scratching her a bit. And in her dreams she sees him at the end of an aisle, grinning at her, his eyes watering. It was a beautiful scene, but she knew it would never be real. She knew he was out there with super models, loving the attention. He had always loved attention. 

“Pay attention to me!” he’d whine to her as she did her homework. 

“Shut up, Tony! I have to concentrate!” 

“I could probably do that in a minute, tops.”

“I really hate you right now.”

“No you don’t.”

“No I don’t, but you’re still a dick.” 

“True enough.”

Bex remembers his head in her lap, whining and groaning until she talked to him, or gave up doing her homework and let him complete it so they could go to the beach, or the park, or drive around in his car with the top down, blasting ACDC while they sped down the road. It was a cliché teen movie and she loved every second of it. 

She wipes tears from under her eyes as the usual intense longing fills up her chest, the loneliness making her feel empty. Bex sighed and licked her chapped lips, then sighed again more deeply as she pulled herself back together again. 

She couldn’t afford to fall apart like this, she couldn’t afford to fall apart so completely anymore. She wouldn’t survive the next time. She wouldn’t- she couldn’t- 

She can’t do this anymore. 

Bexley shoots up and races to her computer, typing in ‘tony stark,’ hurriedly. What was her true love up to? ‘Pepper Potts and Tony Stark engagement?!’ blinked up at her in blocky black lettering, showing a picture of Pepper with a ring on her finger, walking next to Tony. Oh. That- that was a thing, a thing that was apparently happening. A thing she- she really couldn’t handle right now. 

“Nope, nope, nope,” she said, pushing back her rolling chair until she was on the other side of her living room. Regret, depression, fear, all of it hurt, but the envy, the envy made it all her living hell. It burned her veins and ripped her heart from her chest, it made her eyes water and her head spin. Every super model, every celebrity, and everything she wasn’t, was all wrapped into one perfect package.

Pepper Potts. 

She was skinny, successful, so fucking beautiful, and she was perfect for Tony. She could keep him in line, she could keep his eyes on her, he could be everything Bexley wasn’t. 

Except maybe eventually, she could be the mother of his child. 

Eventually, they could have the family she dreamed of. They could raise a little baby with Tony’s dark locks and her grey eyes, they could have their perfect little family. 

But Bexley had Darcy. She had an amazing daughter who was so beautiful and smart, she was snarky and a little mother hen, always trying to bring in stray cats, even when Bex had said no at least a million times. ‘And no, Darcy, that doesn’t mean you can bring home a dog!’ She was her little princess, and now she was out in the world, on her way to becoming the queen of her own kingdom. 

Sometimes she wishes she had that perfect family with Tony. They could have a house and he could teach Darcy about tech, and she could bake in the kitchen, and bring them her famous sugar cookies, always shaped and decorated for the season. She imagines being able to compare the two loves of her life side by side, see which features Darcy got from him and the ones she got from her. She wants that life were the two of them would be awakened on Christmas morning to Darcy jumping all over their bed, so excited to open the big pile of presents they would be able to afford. 

She wants to be able to stare into his eyes, and not through a computer screen. She wants his eyes to be filled with love, and maybe they’d lean in for a kiss and Darcy would screech ‘ew!’ like Bex did with her parents. 

She wants Darcy to have grown up with a father, grown up with an allowance, gotten a big pile of Christmas presents, or a big party for her birthday, she wants her daughter to have gotten a chance at that life.

Bexley shakes herself, wipes her cheeks once again, stands from her chair, and walks over to her computer to shut it down. He didn’t need her, he didn’t love her anymore, he has the opposite of her, proving that fate made a mistake. He’s so successful now, too. 

And as much as Bexley doesn’t want it to be true, Obadiah had been right. 

She had been holding him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's sad, but it has to get sad before it get's happy! Trust me! By the way, loving the comments! So encouraging!
> 
> Also, I was listening to "The One That Got Away" by Katy Perry if you want to cry!


	5. The Only One That Mattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was the only one that ever mattered.

Tony Stark had fucked up a lot in his life, but most people were willing to look over it as he was a billionaire, clearly. But his biggest mistake, was the one that money and power couldn’t fix, no matter what. 

He let her run away. 

Every night, even the ones with another girl in his bed, he thinks of her. Bex B, the only girl that ever mattered. She was the one that could always get his heart pounding with just a smile, she could make him blush under just one of her loving stares, and she was the only girl that had left him in the dust. 

He knew he was going to fuck it up, he knew that she was way too perfect for someone like him. Sure, he was famous, sure he was handsome and smart, but she, she was everything. Lush lips, curves for days, fun hair, and she never put up with his shit. He knew he’d fuck up, but he never wanted it to end. He never wanted to not wake up with the smell of her pomegranate shampoo, her coconut body wash, the ever present smell of sugar cookies, or her soft warm body pressed up against his. 

He loved the way she smiled up at him, it felt like the first glimpse of sunshine after a storm. He had never been religious, but he was sure that those moments were what heaven would be like. She was his everything, before his parents died and everything fell apart. Their love became strained because he was stressing out because what the hell was he supposed to do with a whole company? What was he supposed to do with the media breathing down his neck? Then Obadiah fixed everything by destroying the purest, most beautiful thing in his life. 

He remembers the way she became quiet around him, how she started closing up and shutting him out, and he knows he deserved it, because he did the same thing to her. He shut her out, he stopped talking about things that mattered, he started listening to Obadiah, thinking he was trying to help. He eyed other girls before he realized Bexley Belinda Lewis was everything he could ever want, but it was too late, he had already fucked everything up. 

He deserved the pain of having his heart ripped from his chest, he deserved to be tortured by those terrorists, because he drove the one love of his life away. He deserved to always have a cold bed, because she wasn’t laying with him. He deserved to never smell her her shampoo, or sugar cookies, or just the sweet musky scent that was her. He deserved to have her last words echo in his head like they were branded on his brain. He deserved to only wonder what she was doing right then, and was she happy? Was she content, or were her words true, would she always love him? Would she always see his eyes when she closed hers? He deserved to never be able to look at a woman with curves, because that was her thing. He deserved to feel disgusted with himself every time he woke up with a girl cuddling his side, because that was her thing! That her place, at his side! But no, he ruined it.

Everything had been so perfect before suddenly it wasn’t. It felt like having everything ripped out from under him. Suddenly he had no parents, then he had no soulmate, and then he was known as a playboy genius, changing the world, but what did it matter if she wasn’t there? What did anything matter if she wasn’t there with him? He still kept her picture in his wallet, the one he begged her to let him keep even though she hated it. 

It was battered and had a little bit of dirt on it, as it had survived Afghanistan, and he loved staring at it, even though he had long ago memorized every one of her features. Her wide blue eyes, her plump lips, her small sharp nose, her colorful hair that had always been so soft. He had taken the picture one morning, when she had just woken up, with her bubblegum pink curls wild around her head and her eyes half lidded, with a peaceful smile on her dark lips. 

“You’re an angel!” he had laughed, even though it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

“Shut up, Tony, I look horrible,” she had grumbled.

“You’re beautiful, shut up, I’m keeping this,” he had grinned. This had gotten her attention. 

“No you are not, Anthony Edward Stark!” she had yelled, tackling him to the floor, both laughing breathlessly.

“Ooh, the full name, am I in trouble?” he had wiggled his eyebrows and she had laughed, then smirked down at him, straddling his hips. 

“Yes, yes you are,” she had breathed across his lips, “No kisses or hugs for the rest of the day,” she had decided, standing up smoothly and walking out of the room as he squawked, unbelieving. 

“You won’t be able to resist!” he yelled, chasing after her. 

“I think I’ll survive,” he could still hear the laughter in her voice. Tony sighed, running a hand down his face. He just wanted her to suddenly show up, maybe come to Rhodey’s and Pepper’s wedding for some reason, he could spin her across the dance floor. He took a moment wondering what she looked like now, once again. Maybe she’d have slight laugh lines and crow’s feet, she’d probably have a cool hair color, maybe she has a café now. He can just imagine her setting up cookies and cakes in a glass container, smiling at the usual’s, maybe her coffee making skills had improved, too. He huffed out a laugh that was half sob as he sat on his stool in his empty, messy lab.

He heard Dum-E’s whirling as he rolled up to him. He beeped sadly and Tony shook his head, looking down at the old polaroid in his hands. His fists clench, crunching the picture slightly. He smooths out the photo and sighs. 

“Sir, Ms. Potts is requesting your presence upstairs,” JARVIS’s voice makes him jump slightly.

“I’m busy,” he says, his voice cracking. He clears his throat. “I’m busy,” he says, clearer this time. 

A few minutes later he hears the telltale beep and Pepper’s voice ring out in the lab, “I have some things I need you t- are you okay, Tony?” she murmurs as she approaches, spying the picture in his hand, it was a beautiful girl, and it was clearly pretty old. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he shakes his head, placing the picture back in his wallet. “I’m fine,” he clears his throat again. She raises an eyebrow, not really believing him. “Have you seen the press lately?” she asks, changing the subject. “They think we’re engaged!” she laughs, unbelieving. Tony has a fleeting thought about what Bex thought about that. Was she jealous, or was she engaged herself? She might even be married, with a kid. It has been twenty-one years and…

“What day is it?” he asks suddenly. 

“The 23rd, why?” Forty-two days and-

“What time is it?” 

“Six p.m., why, again?” Four hours then. 

“No reason.” Pepper snorts. 

“Yeah right, what is it?” 

“Just, an old flame,” he shrugs, even though she was so, so, so much more than that. 

“You keep track of the anniversaries of old flames?” 

“Just the one,” he sighed. 

“Who was she?” she asks, wondering what woman could have possibly taken his attention that long. 

“The only one that ever mattered,” he mutters, standing up. “I’m going to get a drink.” 

“Not surprising,” she mutters, eying the wallet he left behind. She picks it up and stares at the picture of the girl, especially the writing on the white strip at the bottom. ‘The Only One That Ever Mattered,’ written in his messy scrawl. “Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think in the comments! I can't wait for Pepper to get on the case of the missing soulmate! Woohoo!


	6. He needs help

“We don’t even go to this high school!” [Bexley](http://www.polyvore.com/not_our_prom/set?id=185275063) yelled as they pulled up to the high school gym. She could hear music from the parking lot. Bexley nervously shifted her dress and adjusted her crown as Tony not so subtly eyed her.

                “Who cares? I’m Tony Stark and I wanna dance with my soulmate,” he shrugs and winks at her. “My very sexy soulmate,” he leans over and Bex smiles at him before leaning up to kiss his lips.

                “I still can’t believe you got me a crown…”

                “Well, you’re my Queen B., babe,” he smiles and she snorts.

                “You are so cheesy! It’s a good thing I am just as cheesy as you, my handsome prince,” she smirks at him and he grins.

                “I’m only a prince?”

                “Yeah, you have to marry a queen to become a king.”

 

                Tony’s look is completely blank as he stares at the small velvet box in his hand. He knew what was inside, and he knew what would happen if he opened it.

                He knew the familiar rush of pain in his chest, that achy feeling he got whenever those memories hit him. He knew the waves of sadness that drowned him. He knew that familiar desperation to have her in his arms. He knew it, and he welcomed it like an old friend as he flipped open the small lid.

                It was just as beautiful as it was when he bought it. Delicate woven gold cradled a beautiful ruby like a small child. It was the inspiration for his legacy. He’d always kept it in his pocket when they were together, waiting for the perfect moment that never came. After everything fell apart, he stored it in the back of his closet, and tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about her.

                He didn’t know why, all of a sudden he was craving her harder than ever. Maybe it was because he was dying, and he just wanted one last fix. She was his nicotine. She’d hated it when he started smoking, but he did it anyway. He’d needed something to release the stress, instead of talking his shit out like a normal human being, and now he was craving her like nicotine. He was relapsing into that state he was in after she left, but so much worse. He couldn’t think of anything else but her. He couldn’t look at another woman because every time, he could feel her disappointed gaze. He could feel her at his side, trying to ignore the glances shot at them, the words whispered behind their backs.

                He gasped out a sob as he realized how much shit he put her through. He knew they were whispering, but that part of him that craved attention liked it. He liked causing gossip. He had liked the way he could do the simplest things and everyone cared. But he forgot to turn off the show. He forgot to flip that switch and then he ruined everything. Wandering eyes, egos the size of New York, and the thought that nothing mattered but him, he was the center of everything, he forgot the center of his universe. He forgot his moon and sun, he forgot he wasn’t the press’s puppet, he forgot he wasn’t Obadiah’s doll, he forgot he had a soulmate that loved him. And then he started to go down, and she got away before he could drag her with him.

                He remembers how she could always make him smile. Could make him feel alive with just a look. He wants that rush, he wants his cheeks to tint red and he wants to hear her laugh. He wants her head on his chest and to wonder how he got so lucky, with her soft snoring filing his quiet room. He’d lay there with a grin on his face because, how the hell did the universe think he deserved her?

                How fucking stupid was he when he let her go? Sure he was a genius, but he was dumb as fuck when it came to her. He was so fucking stupid when it came to anything Bexley.

 

                She sighed at the magazine cover on her counter. Stark Expo, in New York. Did the universe hate her or something? Why did they taunt her like this? “Why do you look like that expo killed your family, Bex?” Monique asked as she came out of the back kitchen. “Last I checked, Darcy was in New Mexico for that internship, and nothing can happen in that small town, trust me.” Monique sighs. “What’s up, Bex? Why’re you so down today?”

                “Nothing, nothing,” she shakes her head and tries to smile, but it looks more like a grimace.

                “I got it! You need to get laid.”

                “What! No! Gross, stop talking. You’re like a daughter to me, Moni, stop talking like that.”

                “Page!” Moni calls to the pretty blonde siting in the table nearest to them. She already had a small smile on her face, so Bex knew she had already heard part of the conversation. “Do you know any hot young guys that would want to rock BB’s world?” Karen snorts and shakes her head slightly.

                “No, but I’ll keep you posted,” she smirks at Bexley and leans forward, using the spoon from her oatmeal like a microphone. “Tell me, Ms. Lewis, what are you looking for in a man?” she adopted a weird deeper voice as she talked.

                “Well, I guess he’d have to be smart, have a nice smile and beautiful eyes, and-,” is Tony Stark. She wants Tony Stark. “I don’t know, I always had a thing for the bad boys, the snarky ones that were only nice to me and mine.” Karen raised an eyebrow.

                “Thinking of anyone specific?” Moni asked, smirking.

                Bexley shook her head. “No, that was just my fantasy when I was a teenager. My soulmate being this handsome bad boy everyone wanted but I got. But somethings are just fantasies.”

                “I don’t know,” Karen shrugged. “I think you could date anyone you wanted. You’re beautiful, curvy, fun, everything anyone could ever want.” Bexley laughed like it was funny. Sure, everyone could want her, but there was only one that she wanted, and he was out of reach, even if he wasn’t really engaged.

                “You guys going to the Stark Expo?” Moni asked, thankfully changing the subject, though it was pretty much the same for Bexley. “It’s the opening tomorrow.”

                “Do you think some of his confidence will rub off on me if I just see him in person?” Karen asked, sipping out of her mug.

                Bex shrugs. She knows the feelings she got from him. Anxiety, scared he’ll do something stupid or get himself arrested (again), fearing that the people around him notice you and realize you’re just a girl who’s along for the ride. There was an excitement, with being around him, even when they were alone. In public, he had been the playboy, genius, who eyed other girls and had this fake smile on his lips. In private, he had been sweet and kind, smiling down at her genuinely, always kissing her forehead or being a sweetheart to her. The problems started when he started acting like the snarky playboy in private, too.

                “I knew people like him,” Bexley says, drawing attention from the two girl’s around her. “They’re like Saturday nights, y’know? They’re fun, and exciting, get your heart pounding. Everyone loves Saturdays. You get drunk on the love, and you forget about the hangover the next morning. And when it comes, and you wake up in an alien place, you remember when you were smart and careful, but it all went out the window with Saturday, but you know what I say? Fuck Saturdays, they’re disappointing and a waste of time,” she shrugs and heads back to the kitchen, ignoring the shell shocked looks of her young friends.

                Bexley sat in her apartment the next night, a tub of cookies and cream in her lap as she watches the crowd cheer for him. Tony smiles and waves as he delivers his egotistical speech and the girls in red and gold cheer dance off the stage. He looks so happy, but she can see that something’s wrong. Something serious. That plastic smile and happy wave, they cover the stuff that’s wrong like paint over mold. He tries to hide it, but someone’s going to notice it’s still there.

                And when he almost gets killed in Monaco a few days later, after he turned his assistant into CEO, she felt dread in her heart. Like ice in her chest, freezing her lungs and suffocating her. She needs to see him, and she knows the perfect time. She’s going to help him, since it looks like no one else is going to.


	7. Parties, Explosions, and Memories

“What the hell am I doing?” Bex muttered to herself as she pulled up in her rental to the already crowded mansion. Jesus, was she insane? Waltzing in there like she owned the place! Well, not so much as waltzing, as walking slowly, dragging out the time as she studied the bachelor pad. Panic bubbled in her chest as she heard the commotion going on around him. It was just the start, and he was already piss faced. Bex shook her head as her thoughts ran out of control. What if he recognized her? What if he didn’t? She walks past the crowd of people and down some stairs, she just needed a moment to herself.

                She came to a glass wall and door with a keypad on it. The music was still blasting, and she needed a calm place to figure out what the fuck she was going to do, so she typed in his birthday, and when that didn’t work, her birthday. To her surprise, the door unlocked. Bexley walked into his work shop, smiling at the familiarity. Then she heard a familiar beeping and whirling.

 

                “He’s so stupid!” Bexley laughed at the robot Tony helped her make rolled around, knocking stuff over. It whirled in disagreement, then knocked over a fire extinguisher. “Clearly I’m not meant for engineering. One of my many flaws, according to your dad.”

                “No! You are perfect! Don’t listen to him, he’s old and lame!” Tony swung an arm around her shoulders. “What should we name our first child?” Bexley blushed and put a finger on her chin mock thoughtfully.

                “How about Dum-E? D-U-M –hyphen- E! It fits him perfectly and it seems techy!”  she laughed as the robot beeped happily, glad it had a name.

                “It’s perfect,” he agreed.

 

                She turned to see Dum-E rolling up to her. Tony had kept him. He still had the piece of garbage. He still cared. “Hey, Dum-E,” she greeted quietly, smiling tearfully.

                “Excuse me, ma’am?” A voice from the ceiling interrupted their reunion. “I am JARVIS, mister Stark’s AI, may I ask who you are?”

                “I’m Bexley Lewis, Tony’s sou-,” she stopped. “Um, I’m an old friend,” she finished lamely. She scratched her neck and looked around to the case containing his Iron Man suits. An explosion and some delighted screaming made her look to the stairs, where a handsome black man, who looked very familiar, walked in, the noise muffling as the door slid close.

                “Who are you and how did you get in here?” he asked, glaring at her. He probably thought she was some Tony obsessed ex-girlfriend. Which she guesses, she is. Before she could say anything, JARVIS interrupted.

                “This is an old friend of Sir’s, Ms. Bexley Belinda Lewis,” he said simply. “She is authorized to be in here.” To back her up, Dum-E rolled in front of her protectively. His face clears as his eyes study her. And she suddenly knows where she remembers him from.

                “Bexley? It’s James Rhodes!” he grinned at her, and she grinned at him. He looks like he wants to talk to her, but changes his mind when another crash comes from upstairs. “Bex, you might want to clear the premises, it’s about to get a little messy,” he said as he walked over to a silver Iron Man suit. “JARVIS?” the suit assembled onto him. Bexley nodded to herself and left, waving goodbye to Dum-E as she went.

                Tony was clearly drunk, shooting things so people would laugh. Bexley sighed and crossed her arms under her bust, her eyebrows doing that thing where they pointed up in her frustration and sadness. Her blue eyes watered as she watched her soulmate party with girls a lot skinnier and prettier than her. He was fine, she tried to tell herself. She tried to ignore the emptiness in his eyes, the way he tried to fill himself with empty things. Bexley sighed and walked to the door, turning back in time to lock eyes with Tony, whose face emptied completely when he saw the sadness in her expression.

                His mouth went slack in recognition as she smiled at him softly, with sadness in her eyes. “Bexley?” he mouths, his eyes widening almost comically. 

 

                Tony can’t believe she’s standing in his house, on his (last) birthday. She’s so beautiful, with her full lips, her chin length lavender hair, her curves wrapped in a tight black dress, her teary expression and her wide blue eyes leaking tears. She was here, she was actually here! She was here, and she cared! She looked even more beautiful then he remembered, age did her well…

                He takes a step forward, and she takes one, too…

                Then Rhodey ruins everything. The people surge away and suddenly she’s gone. Like she was never there, mixed in with all the people that don’t matter. All the people that never mattered.

 

                Bexley watched the fight for as long as possible, before it all became too dangerous. It was clear Tony was in trouble, something was going on with him, and she was going to find out. The next morning, she found the place was being guarded by men and women in black suits and dark sunglasses. She knew she would never get in so she looked into one of the outside cameras and mouthed, ‘JARVIS, have him find me in New York,’ and she was gone before the agents thought she was lingering too long.

                She flew back to New York and threw herself back into working at the café, hanging up some local artists’ paintings on the walls, cleaning everything, rereading the Harry Potter books, and trying to call Darcy.

                “ _Hi! You’ve reached Darcy’s phone! Leave me a message so I can call you back!”_

                “Hey Darcy, it’s your mom, uh, I know you’re busy but could you give me a ring? I miss you, princess, and it’s getting lonely up here. Sorry to bother you, sweetheart, it’s just I’d love to hear your voice. Love you!” She hangs up and tries to hold back her tears. How pathetic was she? She was crying because her daughter hadn’t called her in a few weeks! Crying because the love of her life was reckless and stupid, and she hadn’t even kissed him in twenty-three years! Crying because what was the point in living without him? Her daughter didn’t need her any more, her soulmate didn’t want her any more…

                But he had kept DUM-E, he had programmed her into his system at his house, even though they hadn’t spoken in years by then. Her fingers brushed over his words, her heart fluttering at the thought of him getting her message and coming to find her. What were the odds that he still loved her? Lord knows she loves him, she’s never stopped. Maybe he still wanted to hold her hand, maybe he still wanted to kiss her forehead, maybe he still wants her. Shitty coffee and all.

                But maybe, he let her go for a reason.

                Maybe he let her go ‘cause there were so many other beautiful girls out there. Girls who are skinny, girls with tan skin and blonde hair. Girl’s that didn’t have crow’s feet and grey hairs. Stretch marks around her stomach and thighs, a grown up daughter and a small café.

                She thinks of their last fight, how they screamed each other until she ran out to pack her things. She couldn’t handle the fights, the screaming. That night she had found out she was pregnant, and went over to his house, but instead of him, found Obadiah.

 

“What’s wrong, Bexley?” he had asked, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. She had tears streaming down her young face, her eyebrows pointing up.

“I’m- uh- pregnant,” she had cried. His face had changed in a split second, going from friendly, to dangerous, then a clam mask fit over his features. He brought her over to Tony’s couch, his heavy hand clenching around her shoulder painfully.

“You’re worried what Tony will think?” he asked. She nodded her head shakily, flinching from the tight grip he had on her. “I think you should go, Bexley. That, or get rid of it.”

“It?” she had asked, appalled.  “They are not an ‘it’?! It’s our baby!” He glared down at

her.

“You’re holding him back, Bexley,” he had growled at her. “You’re a distraction I-he can’t afford; he doesn’t have time to play house with you. And with your relationship already falling apart, what do you think he’ll say when he finds out? You think he’ll want that? You think he’s the kind of guy to want a family? Well, I hate to brake it to you sweetheart, but he’s the kind of guy to go looking for another girl when the other is about to pop. Then we’ll have a whole other scandal on our hands to distract him. Do you think he’ll be able to run a company like that? No, he’ll get voted out and you, that baby, and his will be out on the streets.”  Bexley was full on sobbing then as confusion and panic filled her heart. He was right, their relationship was already falling apart, and add a baby to the mix, it’ll break them, more than it already had. She nods her head as sobs rock her chest.

He was better off without a pregnant girlfriend. “I’ve got to get my stuff; can I- can I at least say goodbye to him?” Obadiah nods.

“He’ll need closure.” And the next day she told him, with her stuff headed to a friend’s house in

New York, and a box of old pictures as a carry on.

“I’m leaving.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are broken, but we're gonna fix it. I swear, scout's honor.

He looked blankly around his ruined mansion and thought it pretty much summed up his life. Broken. He didn’t bother dodging around the shards of broken glass that littered the floor, or the chunks of plaster that had rained down in his fight with Rhodey. He made his way down the stairs to his lab, typing in the greatest day in all humanity. The day one Bexley Belinda Lewis was born.

                He shuffled into his workshop, and was greeted quite enthusiastically by DUM-E, who was excited to see him. He was beeping and whirling around, Tony honestly didn’t know what the bot was trying to get across. “What? Is Willy stuck in the well?” Tony drawled, snorting to himself, shaking the vision that kept playing over and over out of the corner of his eyes. It was the second his eyes had met her beautiful blue orbs, and the second she disappeared.

                He hoped his subconscious didn’t hate him that much. Teasing him with that vision of Bexley. She was beautiful, age had really done her well, even inside his own head. The crow’s feet and laugh lines creased her pale face slightly, a blush to her cheeks, and her body even curvier than before. She was a gorgeous woman. So gorgeous, that it seemed almost impossible that he could think her up. That this drunken delusion could have been dreamt up. Even when the look of sadness on her mature features had looked so real. She didn’t deserve to see what her soulmate had become.

                He turns JARVIS back on, and the first thing he says rings through his head, echoing and bouncing, not really soaking in. His whole world heals and shatters all at once. “I have a message from Ms. Bexley Lewis.”

 

 

                “Monique Renae Daye, I don’t need to be set up.”

                “Come on, Ms. Lew!” Monique whines, “You need someone! With lil’ D outta the house, ya need a little somethan’ on the side!” Karen nods in agreement, stirring her tea.

                “Karen!” Bexley said, admonished. “Tell her she’s being crazy! I am perfectly fine… I am, don’t give me that look, Page.” Bexley groaned, banging her head onto the counter she was wiping down. “Ugh, I’m waiting on someone, ‘kay? I got a soulmate out there, and I waiting for him.”

                “Him?! You’ve met ‘em already? Haven’t you?!” Monique squeals, rushing forward. “Tell me! Tell me now!” Bexley sighs, stress crinkling the lines by her eyes, but sdness adding a doe like quality.

                “He’s, he’s Darcy’s dad. And he doesn’t know about her. But I told him to find me in New York. He definitely has the resources to do so,” she mutters, scrubbing viscously at the counter, avoiding her younger friends’ eyes. “It’s-,” her voice drops down to a whisper, “He’s Tony Stark.”

                “Holy shit!” Karen, usually mild mannered exclaims, choking on her tea, the same time Monique exclaims,

“ _WHAT?!_ You mean, instead of busting our fantastic asses around this joint, we coulda been living on ya sugar daddy’s yacht in the Mediterranean?!”

“We haven’t talked in twenty-four years, girls,” Bexley whispers, shaking her head sadly. Monique made a face. Karen’s lips pinched and her brow furrowed, feeling her friend’s deep sadness.

“So, you said you told him to find you in New York, right? And he’s your soulmate, Bexley, he has to come around,” Karen said softly, leaning over the counter to grab Bex’s calloused hand. “Why don’t you go call Darcy upstairs, and we’ll handle things down here. It’s a slow night anyway.” Bexley nodded shakily, wiping under her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I need to tell Darcy what’s going on,” she said softly, sighing deeply as she made her way to the back room and upstairs to the cramped apartment that held so many memories. She sighed, grabbing her cell and typing in the recent. Darcy had missed the last few nightly updates, and though Bexley had taken a breath, then excused it as the girl being swamped at her internship, Bex couldn’t help but worry. She clicked her baby girl’s face, and crossed her fingers, closing her eyes and centering her breathing.

“Mom! Hey, what’s up?!” Darcy exclaimed, clearly pumped full of adrenaline and excitement. Or panic.

“Darcy? Can we talk for a little bit, sweetheart, I’ve got something to tell you,” she said softly, swallowing nervously.

“Of course, Mom, what’s up?”

“I never told you about my soulmate, or your father, but, they’re- uh- one of the same.”

“I may have already known that from this box of polaroids and a letter addressed to some mobster guy named Tony who, in my opinion, sounded like an asshole.” A small smile makes its way to Bexley’s lips, recalling that she knew he was an asshole, even before they met.

“Yeah, I knew he was going to be trouble the second his words cleared on my skin,” she said softly, stroking the fabric over her thigh. “But I didn’t know he’d be a famous asshole,” she muttered, and heard a soft gasp over the phone.

“Famous? Like Justin Timberlake famous?”

“More like, Bill Gates famous,” she sighed softly. “Your father’s Tony Stark-,”

“TONY STARK IS THE ASSHOLE THAT ABANDONED YOU?! IRON MAN ABANDONED MY MOTHER?!” Darcy screeched, seething. “I will kill that mother fu- bad choice of words, sorry.”

“It’s fine, Dee, but I’m the one- I’m the one that abandoned him,” Bexley sighed, “Obadiah Stane, he drove me away, and I didn’t refuse. We were already- already walking on thin ice, with his parents dying and- and it was me getting pregnant that made me realize that maybe, maybe this wasn’t our time. Maybe we didn’t have a time,” Bexley laughed softly, tear choked. “We were so happy before Stane turned his head, until I let him go.”

“Mom…” Darcy said, “None of this is your fault, heck, none of this is Stark’s fault. This is Stane’s fault. He’s the one that turned him into the jackass he is today.”

“He was always a jackass, Darcy, but he was sweet to me, that’s what I liked. Whenever we were alone, the mask would fall away. The problem was when, when the mask didn’t leave, and he was still a little shit when we were alone.” Darcy chokes, and Bexley can imagine the shake of her daughter’s dark head as she stifled her loud, slightly obnoxious laughter, that was just like her father’s. Just like Tony’s when she mocked his father while they lied there in his bed, tangled in ridiculously high thread count sheets, stifling their giggles just the same, as they didn’t need another warning from Jarvis to be quiet.

“Why are you telling me this now, Mom? It’s good to know, but there must be a reason.” Bexley sighed, knowing she couldn’t stop the inevitable. She would find out somehow. Either from Monique or the news.

“I contacted him, and asked him to find me in New York.”

“Really? After all this time, you still want to make things work? You still want to try?”

“He needs me, Dee, I can tell. And, I need him. I’ll always love you, Dee, but, I’m all alone up here, and I need someone. You, or your father, even a cat or some shit. But you’re off in New Mexico chasing aliens-,” Darcy chokes there, and Bexley files that away for later, “And the lease on the apartment doesn’t allow pets. So I guess, it’s time I find my soulmate. Again.”

“You go, Mom, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Darce,” Bexley smiled into the phone. “Now what’s been happening in New Mexico?”

“Some weird shit, Mom, lots a weird shit.”


	9. Chapter 9

His heart was racing, his arc reactor was sure to give out, even when he knew it was impossible. But _this_ \- this was crazy. This was incredible, and heartbreaking- heart making- it was joy pumping in his veins, but he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe she had been here, had asked him to find her, and he was going to do it. He was going to shove off Obadiah’s heavy hand, and he was running after her. He was finally chasing the girl that’s plagued his dreams every night for twenty-one years.

                He pulls up the footage of the party, and easily spots her in the crowd, and hot damn. Oh god, she was beautiful, gorgeous, she was every dream wrapped up with a bow on top. She was there, with her dark lipstick and lavender hair, her beautiful curves he’s been missing since she left. Fucking hell, he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait a second longer. “JARVIS, pull up the address for Bexley Belinda Lewis,” he demands, his heart jumping in his chest, his hands shaking, jittering with excitement. And there she was, living in Midtown, above her own café. She did it. Without him.

                But something in her information (that he might’ve illegally pulled up, sue him, she’s his soulmate) wasn’t right. A daughter. Darcy Maria Lewis, who was twenty-two years old. And happened to have his nose. And hair color. Jesus fucking Christ, that was his smile, wasn’t it?

                It took a minute, then suddenly everything clicked into place. She left, so suddenly, leaving him in the heavy hands of Obadiah Stane. Stane’s insistence he gets a vasectomy (he refused, but still, it was fucking weird), the final shove that pushed her over the edge. Who would want to raise a kid with him? Especially who he was back then, (he was still an asshole, but honestly, he was more of a jackass back then) and it was no wonder she left. But still, she was giving him the chance to become a part of her life again, and he would be a fucking idiot to turn her down. He wouldn’t push her away again. He wouldn’t let anything get in the way of him and her.

                Not now, not ever. He ignores the part of brain that tells him he wasn’t worth her in the first place, now especially, with the blood on his hands, and called ahead to his private jet. He would get to her as soon as possible. And if he slips that velvet ring box from the back of his closet into his pocket, that’s his business.

                He spends the whole flight with his leg jumping up and down as he finds the café’s Facebook. There’s events and parties and caterings, but what really jumps out are the paintings on the exposed brick wall, parallel to the counter. All telling a story that matters more than any fairytale, any history book could proclaim. The story of her.

 

                There was a quiet buzz around the empty café, that held a single woman, with the top tendrils of her soft lavender waves pulled back in a small bun at the top of her head, a small smile on her lips as she got ready to close at eight. Moni had worked all morning, sending Bexley to the mall for a break, and Bex had gladly taken the night shift, that was a lot tamer than the morning rush. She could only imagine Moni’s tired sass as she put out all irritated people itching for their fix of caffeine. A small smile quirked Bexley’s plump lips, painted with a dark purple lipstick that was rubbed off a bit in the center of her lips, as she hadn’t had the time to reapply.

She looks around the empty café, with the story of something greater along the walls. A small girl with dirty blonde curls, in the corner of a hospital waiting room, tears streaming down her young face. A woman stood, her pale hands framing her abdomen, her face nothing but blurred colors, the rest of her body in high definition. Then there’s painting of a man- a boy really, his chest a black hole as he faces outwards, light shining in his brown eyes, a heavy hand emerging from the darkness behind him lying on his shoulder. There’s Princess Darcy, running in a field, her red dress billowing around her as she runs. Most of them based on polaroids buried in the back of her closet. The silence around her echoes her soft sigh. Suddenly, there’s a ring of the bell at the front, and time seems to slow as her eyes flit up to find his. The very brown eyes she sees every time she closes her own, only with slight wrinkles framing them. It makes him even more gorgeous.

                “Got any coffee that’s not shit?” he asks softly, his tone not matching his words, but what they meant, with his soft voice, filled with love and adoration, fit the context perfectly. Her heart is in her throat, and she swallows as she faces him fully, the counter an unwanted barrier that may have represented something more.

                “Nope,” she whispered, her voice husky. “Guess you’ll just have to get used to my shit coffee, bub.” Silence envelopes them before he’s jumping over the counter, and they collide.

 

Her lush curves fit against the hard planes of his body perfectly, her full lips consuming his every thought. Just an echo of _she’s here, she’s here, she’s here._ He forgets to breathe in his desperate need to feel her, to hold her, to have her back in his life. He doesn’t know why he stayed away so long. Doesn’t know why he didn’t search for her. Doesn’t know how he could live without the center of his universe for so damn long. He hoists her up onto the counter, his hands consuming her curves like a starving man to a feast. It’s like a dam has broken and he can’t remember why this hadn’t happened sooner.

But, still, he had so many questions, and no answers.

 

“Bexley,” he gasps, framing her mature face and soft jaw with his rough hands. Bexley’s eyes fight not to close and let the feeling of his calloused fingers, much rougher than they were at eighteen, ghost over her swollen lips. “Bexley, we- we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, they do. 
> 
> Tell me what you think! I really enjoy your feedback!


	10. Epilogue

“ _Why didn’t you tell me?_ ” he says in a voice just above a whisper, “Why didn’t you tell me about Darcy?” his voice is strained and soft spoken at the same time. Bexley’s royal blue eyes slide closed, her hands lying nimbly on his chest, framing the arc reactor that glows softly through his t-shirt. She opens her mouth, and a sob breaks forth from her chest, she shakes her head, and suddenly the whole story spews from her plump lips.

 

 

                _“You’ll always be my one and only, Tony,” she whispers, listening to the light snores emitting from his chest, his heart beat beating slowly but surely under her ear. “You’ll always be my prince, even if I’m not your queen.” She lies on her back, her fingers tracing soft circles on his calloused palm, her shimmering eyes wondering if this would last. Her hand goes to her abdomen, and she knows, she_ knows. _“Maybe this was a mistake, Tony, maybe fate really did mess up. I’m just a little girl with too big dreams, and you’re the man who has the means to make them come true. But I can’t let you take care of me Tony, I don’t want to be another house wife who has to watch their soulmate get tired of them as they make eyes at other girls-_

_“I don’t want to go, either. I don’t want to leave you, Tony.”_

“I didn’t- I didn’t want to go, Tony,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “But maybe we both needed to grow up a little, maybe it was fate.”

                “If I had known,” he groans softly, his hands clenching into fists as he clutched at the loose flannel that floated over her curves. “If I had known he had-,”

                “We were both just nineteen, Tony. I hate it too, but we were just kids and maybe- maybe this was supposed to happen. Maybe you needed to become the man you are today for this- _for us_ to work.”

                “I wish I hadn’t waisted so much time, I wish we-,”

                “We can’t waste even more time wishing we could change the things that have already happened, Tony. We can just saver the time we have left.” She leans her forehead against his chest, a small smile gracing her lips at his strong heartbeat reaches her ears.

 

_“Darcy,” Bexley coos at the giggling baby in her lap, her damp dark curls on her soft head, her big blue eyes staring up at her with a toothless smile. “How are you baby-girl?” Bexley was exhausted, but she couldn’t stop her soft grin at her little girls soft gasping breathes, looking so surprised to be alive. She tries to ignore the deep ache in her chest as longing fills her heart. Her smile wavers, and drops lower, tears streaming down her sweaty face as she holds her baby closer, listening for her heartbeat. There’s a flash and she looks up to see a nurse with her polaroid camera._

_“Someone needed to capture such a beautiful moment.”_

“Do you have any more pictures of her?” Tony asks, sitting next to her in her small walk-in, a little baby Darcy smiling up at him.

                “Yeah, yeah, I do,” she says, smiling as he looks through all her polaroids of Darcy and her over the years. She loved how excited Tony was to meet Darcy. She loved him. And she needed to say so. “I love you, Tony, and I know- I know we’ve got a lot of shit to go through. I know it’ll probably take years for us to have what we had before, but I want to try. I want us to work. So, do you want to go downstairs and get some shitty coffee with me at nine in the evening?”

                “You know what, Bexley, I do. I really do.”

 

                “I can’t believe my mom’s on her honeymoon with her soulmate, my father, who happens to be a famous asshole, Tony Stark. What the hell?” Darcy says idly to Monique, who nods, but freezes suddenly when the door rings, and Darcy boredly recites “Welcome to Bexley Belinda’s café, I’m Darcy.” There’s a small gasp that makes her turn around to see a confused Adonis like man with blond hair and the bluest eyes she’s ever seen. Also he was built like Thor, so that was a plus.

                “I- honestly don’t know what to say for you to recognize me,” the man sighs, an awkward smile on his face.

                “Jesus Christ, my mom’s name is on you somewhere, isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think!
> 
> Stay tuned for a the story of an orphan named Darcy, with nothing to her name but a box of polaroids.


	11. Darcy Maria and the Polaroid Pictures

The story of an orphaned Darcy Maria Lewis, and the shabby box of polaroid pictures she holds onto like a lifeline.

 

Hello!

[Here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10360413/chapters/22890018) is the link to the next installment of the Polaroid Pictures AU! Please contact me with any interest in helping with plot points after you've read! Loved to hear what you guys have to think! 

Sincerely,

rather_live_in_their_world_writer 


	12. *Rewrite*

Hello readers!

 

In reviewing my work 'Bexley Belinda and the Polaroid Pictures,' I've come to find that it could use a bit of a refresher. Over the years I've become a much better writer, and I think you all would enjoy my revamped version, '[Bexley Belinda and the Letter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12910491).' It's a lot less angst and the plot moves along a bit quicker. I hope you enjoy!

 

Author

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment and a Kudos if you like it!


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